I recently told my family that I wished I could be a professional blogger.  They exchanged glances and then looked at me quizzically.  My sister said, “Why can’t you?” and my mother said, “But do you even keep a blog, Maggie?”

Over the years I have had many different blogs.  My first blog read much like a conventional journal, listing the things I accomplished (or, more often, failed to accomplish) that day and my hopes and aspirations.  My next blog, created when I was 13, was full of daily reflections and rants on the two topics one should never bring up at the dinner table: religion and politics.  Another blog–this one anonymous–dealt with my struggles, my poor body image and self esteem, and my eating disorder.  Each blog I have written in the past decade has ended up deleted and, for the most part, forgotten.

For a few years I’ve had writer’s block when it comes to daily posting.  I have been too reserved and unsure of myself to write with any sort of confidence.  I still don’t know who I am and up until recently, the not knowing was something that really bothered me.  I follow blogs of young women who seem, at least for the most part, to be happy with themselves and to have it all together.  I daydream sometimes about being like that–someone who is content with life, who looks back on her broken and rocky past but smiles anyway because it got her to where she is now–stable, successful, and happy.

I suppose this is a relatively common goal for young women in America… hell, it’s probably a relatively common goal for people in general, regardless of gender or nation of residence.  Someone famous in history said that, indeed, happiness is the goal of every person…that the need to find it was ingrained in us from the very beginning.  If I wasn’t lazy I would google it… but it’s 8:21 in the morning and I haven’t had my coffee yet.